vol. 46-no. 5 issn 0892-1571 may/june 2020-iyyar/sivan 5780 … · 2020-06-24 · yad vashem and...

Vol. 46-No. 5 ISSN 0892-1571 May/June 2020-Iyyar/Sivan 5780

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEMAMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM

Each year on Yom HaShoah, one canfind Yad Vashem’s Warsaw GhettoSquare packed with survivors, de-scendants of survivors, soldiers, stu-

dents, dignitaries and state officials who havegathered to mark the start of the solemn day.Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Martyrs’ and He-roes’ Remembrance Day, is a national day ofcommemoration in Israel and around the world,when the six million Jews murdered in the Holo-caust are memorialized. This year, however, wasmarkedly different. Because of the COVID-19pandemic, we were unable to gather in person.At this time of the year, the YadVashem campus is typicallybuzzing with activity. Studentgroups and visitors from acrossthe globe tour the museum, attendworkshops at the school, andmeet with survivors to hear theirstories. Instead, ceremonies andother commemorative eventswere made virtual this year, withindividuals participating onlinefrom their homes.

Yad Vashem’s annual recita-tion of names was adapted to anonline platform to accommodatethis year’s unique circumstances.Normally, the names of Holo-caust victims are recited in YadVashem’s Hall of Remembranceand Hall of Names. In light of so-cial distancing guidelines, YadVashem invited the public to join an Interna-tional Virtual Name Reading Campaign. Thiscampaign encouraged people of all ages, fromall walks of life and from all corners of theworld, to join a global name-reading initiative tomark Holocaust Remembrance Day 2020. In-dividuals around the world recorded videos ofthemselves reciting the names of family mem-bers or names they found in the Shoah Victims’Names database. They then shared the videoson social media using the hashtags #Remem-beringFromHome and #ShoahNames.

Numerous dignitaries and celebrities partic-ipated in the campaign, including PresidentRivlin and famous Israeli actor Tomer Kapon.Videos came in from across Asia, Europe,Africa, Australia and the Americas. One cannot

help but marvel at the diverse array of cultural,ethnic, religious and linguistic backgroundsrepresented. We were very proud to have somany people from the ASYV community, in-cluding members of the Board and our YLA,participate as well. Toward the end of YomHaShoah on April 21st, Yad Vashem compiledthe videos that came in from all over the worldand created an online Holocaust Remem-brance Day Global Name Reading Ceremony.While we were unable to gather in person thisyear, we were each able to recite the names ofHolocaust victims from where we were. By re-

membering their names, we help to restoretheir identities and dignity.

The official state ceremony marking the startof Yom HaShoah was prerecorded on the Mountof Remembrance. Only the master of cere-monies and performers were present, whilespeakers sent in video messages. The April 20thevent was broadcast live and shared on both theYad Vashem and ASYV Facebook pages. Therecording included messages from the presidentand prime minister of the State of Israel, the sto-ries of the six survivors, musical interludes,prayers from the chief rabbis, and a message de-livered on behalf of the survivors. This year’storchlighters were Holocaust survivors ZoharArnon from Hungary, Aviva Blum-Wachs fromWarsaw, Haim Arbiv from Libya, Lea Miriam

Reuveni from Czechoslovakia, Avraham Carmifrom Czechoslovakia, and Yehuda Beilis fromLithuania. The personal stories of these torch-lighters reflect the central theme of HolocaustRemembrance Day 2020.

The theme for this year’s day of re-membrance was “Rescue by Jewsduring the Holocaust: Solidarity in aDisintegrating World.” In the week

prior to the event, Yad Vashem Chairman AvnerShalev reinforced the idea that during these chal-lenging times, “we must strive to emulate thoseheroes who, despite the difficult conditions, rose

up to aid their fellow brother.” PresidentRivlin similarly emphasized the incrediblemoral courage of these heroes in hisvideo message. “They proved time andagain that… even at the lowest point,one can and must choose to be human,to hold the most fundamental Jewishvalue of life, of mutual responsibility....And so they were the angels in the heartof hell.”

The commemoration continued themorning of April 21st with the 10 amsiren. Every year, an air raid sirensounds throughout the country, and Is-raelis pause for two minutes of silence inmemory of the Jews murdered by theNazis. Traditionally, the entire nationcomes to a standstill; motorists stop theircars in the middle of the road to standbeside their vehicles, and all activity haltsin the bustling markets. But this year,

confined to their homes, many Israelis stood ontheir balconies. Police officers adorned in med-ical masks and gloves stood at attention in frontof the homes of Holocaust survivors.

Although this year’s Holocaust RemembranceDay was noticeably different from those in yearspast, the overall sentiment remained the same.We must treasure the survivors that are still withus and learn from their wisdom. They experi-enced what no human being should ever have toendure. We must honor the survivors and thememories of the victims by ensuring that such acatastrophe never befalls humanity again. Thisyear — and every year — we renew our pledgeto never forget!

BY JILL GOLTZER

YOM HASHOAH 2020:

REMEMBERING FROM AFAR

(Top row, left to right) Haim Arbiv, Zohar Arnon, Yehuda Beilis; (bottom row, left to right)

Aviva Blum-Wachs, Avraham Carmi, Lea Reuveni.

MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2020 - Iyyar/Sivan 5780

The education department of the Amer-ican Society for Yad Vashem and itsYoung Leadership Associates heldtheir twenty-second annual Arfa Pro-

fessional Development Conference on Holo-caust Education on March 29, 2020. This year’sprogram was generously supported by the Bar-bara Arfa Endowment Fund for Holocaust Edu-cation. The theme for this year’s event wasNever Again Means Now: Confronting Anti-Semi-tism in a Post-Holocaust World — The Impact ofEducation.

Our original plan for the Arfa Conference thisyear had been a live program open to all educa-tors interested in and committed to enrichingtheir knowledge and resources about the Holo-caust. Because of the onset and impact ofCOVID-19 and the immediate requirement of so-

cial distancing, our plans and format changedradically for our educational events and program-ming nationwide. Through our efforts to provideour programs and resources on a Zoom platformdespite the many new challenges presented byCOVID-19, we were able to offer the Arfa confer-ence in a new format. We succeeded with an im-pactful program, reaching out to educatorsnationwide, and received strong and positivefeedback from our dedicated participants. Thisconference has proven to be a strong vehicle topromote the mission of Holocaust remembranceand memory through education over the years.With the rise in anti-Semitism across the globe,our mission is now more important than ever be-fore. The conference was created by CarolineMassel, executive board member and foundingchair of the Young Leadership Associates of theAmerican Society, in 1999.

This year, despite the challenges of switchingto a Zoom formats at the last minute, we pre-sented to approximately 80 participants. We hadrepresentation from seven states nationally.

About 75% of the participants were frompublic/non-Jewish schools; 19% were from Jew-ish day schools. 63% of the participants werenew to our program and 31% were alums. Thefeedback we received addresses the conferencein general and our efforts to sustain the confer-ence tgiven the COVID-19 situation. It is all verypositive and encouraging for future efforts.

This program is a collaborative effort with theAssociation of Teachers of Social Studies of theUnited Federation of Teachers, the Educators’Chapter of the UFT Jewish Heritage Committee,and the School of Education of Manhattanville Col-lege. Participants in this year’s program, receivedIn-Service credits for completing the conference.

In 2015, the ATSS/UFT presented the Ameri-can Society for Yad Vashem with the President’sAward for being in the forefront of Holocaust ed-

ucation in the United Statesand for organizing the ArfaProfessional DevelopmentConference on HolocaustEducation. The AmericanSociety received the awardto proclaim the ATSS/UFT’srecognition of the valuablepart the American Societyplays in social studies edu-cation. This award also ac-knowledges that theATSS/UFT commends theAmerican Society for imple-menting best educationalpractices in using docu-ments, inquiry and criticalthinking and action forstudying the Holocaust.

Stanley Stone, executivedirector of the American So-ciety for Yad Vashem,

opened the program and welcomed the partici-pants. Stanley commented how, even with thechange in format, the program still sustained ourdedication and commitment to Holocaust re-membrance through education. Marlene W. Ya-halom, PhD, director of education of theAmerican Society, spoke about the importanceof this program in its efforts to raise Holocaustawareness through education, and acknowl-edged the generosity of the Arfa and Masselfamilies, who established the Barbara Arfa En-dowment Fund for Holocaust Education thatgenerously supports this program.

Our program and theme this year were a starkreminder to all of us of the need to sustain thelessons of the Holocaust and its relevance to ourrespective learning environments. With the riseof anti-Semitic incidents locally, nationally andglobally, the shrinking population of Holocaustsurvivors, and the increase of Holocaust denial,we are faced with challenges that question thevalidity of the information and the justification toinclude it in school curricula. Dr. Yahalom spoke

about how the Holocaust demonstrates an at-mosphere in which genocide can take place, andnoted that the beliefs that result in a genocidesurvive because of a political and social climatethat makes these beliefs acceptable. The Holo-caust must therefore be remembered because itis an example of how these trends can and dobecome more threatening.

Carolyn Herbst, past president /past chairper-son of the ATSS/UFT, emphasized that this con-ference is a valuable resource for increasingawareness and sensitivity to intolerance and in-justice. Ms. Herbst remarked on the challenge ofteaching this subject without reducing the topicto numbers and statistics, and emphasizing thehuman elements of the events — victims, res-cuers, perpetrators and bystanders. She alsospoke on the importance of educators realizinghow “we must teach about the Holocaust asbeing on a continuum.”

Our keynote speaker was Na’ama Shik, PhD,director of e-learning at Yad Vashem. Dr. Shikpresented an engaging lecture about womenand the Holocaust, their bravery and resilience,and her research on the community of victimsamong the Jewish female prisoners ofAuschwitz-Birkenau. Felice Cohen presented aworkshop on family histories and enriched theaudience’s understanding on the relevance ofhistorical documentation and the use of creatingthese histories as an invaluable resource in theclassroom. Cheyenne Oliver discussed the roleof propaganda during the Holocaust and thepowerful impact it had on understanding theHolocaust during the war years. The workshoptopics complemented the theme of the program.

Our theme this year is a reminder toall of us to sustain the lessons of theHolocaust and its relevance in ourrespective learning environments.

Although each year we learn about more statesthat aim to establish and enforce mandatedHolocaust education, we are all painfully awareof the challenges we have encountered while ex-ecuting this mission.

The legacy of the Holocaust is acutely rele-vant to understanding the resurgence of anti-Semitism and related issues, which signal us tobe aware and diligent to strongly address thesematters and work collectively toward “putting outthe flames” of hatred, bigotry and intolerance todifferences. The Arfa Conference is one of manyresources we offer to meet these challenges.

As an immediate and effective response tothe need for social distancing, shelter-at-homeorders nationwide, and cancelled travel opportu-nities, we were able to move our educational out-reach successfully to remote learningopportunities. Below is a list of our accomplish-ments so far.

During these challenging times of COVID-19,Holocaust survivors are again a powerful sourceof inspiration.

Our "Museum Without Walls: a Family’s His-tory through Artifacts" was an opportunity to bringthe museum to you, since museum access ofany kind is restricted for now. We created a pro-gram to share a family’s story, through artifacts,of their life before, during and after the war, andafter the war. Dr. Yahalom spoke about her fam-ily’s story of survival during the Holocaust andthe lives that were rebuilt by her parents (Judy

(Continued on page 5)

WORD GETS AROUND —

HOLOCAUST EDUCATION

ACROSS THE MILES

The Besa exhibit at the Mobile Museum of Art — part of the professional development

program.

May/June 2020 - Iyyar/Sivan 5780 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE

Mira Rosenblatt will never forget Au-gust 12, 1942. On that day, theteenager was among the 30,000Jews living in the Sosnowiec

ghetto in Poland who were rounded up by theNazis and herded into the industrial city’s sta-dium.

She was separated from her parents andthree of her siblings, segregated into a groupdeemed strong enough to work.

At Yom Hashoah 2020, Mira, now 96, remainshaunted by those events more than three-quar-ters of a century ago. In her apartment in Brook-lyn, N.Y., she recounts the harrowing experience.

“Nothing is easy,” says Mira. “I want people toknow about the things that happened.”

In the sea of detainees packing Sosnowiec’sarena, Mira somehow made her way back to herfamily. As a family, they decided that she wouldtake her siblings and attempt to blend them inamong those fit for labor.

As they were being marched forward, shepushed her three siblings — older sister VidaMalka, younger sister Etusha and brother Natan— into a garden to try to save them. A Nazi guardput a gun to her shoulder, forcing her away fromthem.

She later learned they survived for a time, butdid not ultimately survive the war. Nor did theirparents, Helena and Shlomo Isaac Rosenblatt.

“I had very good parents, very understandingparents, educated parents,” she remembers.

She was soon deported to Gruenberg, part ofthe Gross-Rosen concentration camp complexin the German town of Silesia, where she workeduntil January 1945, when camp directors forcedthe prisoners on a death march.

In February, after two weeks of marching, shesaw her chance to escape when a Nazi lookedaway. She took her chance and ran.

Another girl followed. They spent “three orfour days” in the freezing forest, where theybanded with a trio of other girls on the run. Thegroup slept in holes covered with snow; Mira saidthey ate ants and snakes to stave off starvation.One day, they came upon a home with a “bigchimney,” and Mira took another risk.

“I knocked on the door and a woman opened[it], a short little woman who said, ‘Gott! You’re adead person!’ ” she recalls.

“I’m lost, I’m looking for my parents,” she re-members telling the woman. “Then she said,‘Come in. I will give you something to eat.’ ”

Mira stayed on the woman’s farm for threeweeks, cleaning her house and mill, feeding herpigs and aiding with other chores. Although theGerman woman was a “very good person,” Miradidn’t want to push her luck, calling herself “Irina”as if she were a Polish Christian.

She remained mum about the four other girls,who were hiding in the barn, yet she smuggledfood out to them.

One day, a Polish woman visited the house,saw Mira and threatened to call the po-lice because Mira was “without pa-pers.”

The elderly woman told Mira, “Ig-nore her, she came here [from Poland],too.” But Mira was spooked.

She told the elderly woman she mustleave. The woman gave her a loaf ofbread and a chunk of smoked meat,and said, “ ‘God bless you, I hope youfind your parents,’ ” Mira recalls. “‘And ifyou don’t, come back to me.’

“[She] loved me, the old woman,she kissed me and everything.”

Mira divided the food among thegirls. “I cut the bread and meat in five,so everyone had a proper piece,” shesays. “I thought we might get sepa-rated in the forest.”

They walked a mile and a half andreached a farm, whereupon one in thegroup announced: “We three are goinghere. There’s no room for [the two of]you.”

They had met a man who had prom-ised a place for only three to hide.

Mira recalls crying and saying, “Iworked the whole time; I used to bringyou food. You have no room for me?”

Mira and the fifth girl were left tofend on their own. Yet again, her initiative and abit of good fortune saved her.

A young man came along in a wagon. The “P”on his lapel alerted Mira he was a Pole. In Polish,she said, “I’m lost. Maybe you have a place forme to stay by you?”

The young man, Bolek, took the two youngwomen to a castle, where a number of Poleswere farming the land. “We met the other peopleand started to work,” Mira recounts, noting thatonce again she hid her heritage and called her-self Irina.

Ultimately, she sent a letter to where her fam-

ily had lived in Sosnowiec, searching for anyhope of their survival. “It was a 42-tenant buildingmy grandfather had built,” she remembers.

When the war ended, a young mancame looking for her. One of thePoles said, “Irina, a man is walk-ing around the street, and he’s

waving your letter; I recognize your handwriting.”Mira ran to the street and recognized the man

as her distant cousin, Henry Rosenblatt.“He was wearing green pants and a green

blazer, and looked like a soldier,” she recallstearfully. “The Polish people got frightened be-cause they thought he was an American. Theydidn’t know I’m Jewish, remember. They said,‘Americans are here. They are going to kill us.’

“I said, ‘Let’s find out if he speaks Polish.’ Hestayed with us for dinner.”

Soon, Mira told them she was leaving withHenry. “Everyone said, ‘Irina you cannot goaway, you cannot leave us.’ I said, ‘No, I’m goingwith him.’

“I left with my husband.”After the war, the couple settled in Germany,

where they opened stores selling groceries anddry goods. They lost a daughter, Helena, whenshe was 22 months old. They emigrated to NewYork and went on to have three more children:Lil in 1951, Belinda in 1954, and a son, Mel, in1958.

Mira’s two elder brothers, Herschel andMoniek Rosenblatt, who had fled in 1939 to Lem-berg on the Russian front and made their way toUzbekistan, survived the war.

Henry died in 2017, and their son, who was anoted vascular and interventional radiologist,passed away last year.

Mira has eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. She is here to remember and re-mind others of the horrors — and the resilience.

Her legacy lives on.

BY HEATHER ROBINSON, JNS

MIRA ROSENBLATT:

A STORY OF

LEADERSHIP,

RESILIENCE AND

SURVIVAL

Mira displaying a picture of her extended family, most of whom perished

in the Holocaust.


Nazism, the Holocaust, and the Middle East:Arab and Turkish Responses.

Edited by Francis R. Nicosia and Boğaç A. Er-gene. Berghahn Books: New York, N.Y., 2018.258 pp. $23.86 softcover.

In recent years, much more is being writtenabout the Holocaust vis-à-vis the MiddleEast and North Africa. In Nazism, the Holo-caust, and the Middle East: Arab and Turk-

ish Responses, the editors, Francis R. Nicosia &Boğaç A. Ergene, offer up a collection of schol-arly writings concerning areas “predominantly,but not exclusively, Arab and Turkish, and pre-dominantly, but not exclusively Muslim,” with thegoal of making the “response to the possibility ofa German victory in the war and to the prospectof Axis domination in some form” the centerpieceof their anthology. Of particular interest to read-ers of Martyrdom and Resistance, however, willbe the response in these various regions to theknowledge of what was happening to Europe’sJews. Indeed, students of the period will find theresearch published here both surprising andthought-provoking — all of it “authored by re-gional specialists familiar with local sources andlanguages of the region....”

For example, while for years many have be-lieved that Turkey was a compassionate countrywhen it came to reacting to Jewish suffering,Corry Guttstadt’s piece, entitled “Turkish Re-sponses to the Holocaust: Ankara’s Policy to-ward the Jews, 1933-1945,” tells quite a differentstory. While Turkey maintained its neutralitythroughout the period, we read of how Turkey’sown “nationalist domestic policies” were, in fact,encouraged by what was happening in Hitler’sGermany. Thus, “over the course of the 1930s,anti-Semitic tendencies [within the country]grew.” In the 1940s, particularly punishing wasthe Turkish government’s adoption of an “astro-

nomical[ly]” high “wealth tax,” especially when itcame to Turkish Jews, blamed for price in-creases suffered by the general populace.When Jews couldn’t pay the “wealth tax,” their

property wasconfiscated andthey were de-ported for “slavelabor to a regionnear the Russianborder.” (True, allnon-Muslims hadto pay this and,when they could-n’t, were sent offto slave labor.But Jews had topay the most andh e n c e w e r emore likely to bedeported.)

Meanwhile, when it came to “welcoming”Jews fleeing persecution in Europe, while Turkeyaccepted Jewish academics because of the de-sire to “modernize their schools,” others foundthe way barred. For that matter, even transitthrough Turkey was difficult. The saddest exam-ple is the story of the Struma. In December of1941, 765 Jews from Romania were on boardthe vessel when its engine broke down in Turkey.“Turkish authorities refused to allow the passen-gers to disembark” and wait till it was fixed, eventhough Jewish relief organizations said they’dpay all the refugees’ expenses. Instead, theTurkish police “towed [the Struma] into the opensea,” where it sank. Only one person survived.

No less surprising and thought-provokingamong the works in Nazism, the Holocaust andthe Middle East is Israel Gershoni’s piece enti-tled “Demon and Infidel: Egyptian Intellectuals

Confronting Hitler and Nazism during World WarII.” In short, where for years it has been believedthat “many in Egypt and throughout the Arabworld” were generally supportive of Hitler andNazism (knowledge about the activities of theMufti of Jerusalem has surely fueled these be-liefs), Gershoni reveals that the story is not quitelike that. According to him there were a numberof very popular “mainstream intellectuals inEgypt,” including Tawfiq al-Hakim, ‘Abbas Mah-mud al ‘Aqqad, and Ahmad Hasan al-Zayyat,“who created and disseminated a negativeimage of Hitler and Nazi Germany.” Put simply,they viewed him “as a demon/Satan” and/or “in-fidel/nonbeliever,” who, after winning the war,would never grant Egypt its independence fromBritain — something those who supportedNazism believed Hitler would do. On the con-trary, according to these writers, Nazism was notabout freedom at all! It was “an unprecedentedand colossal threat to human civilization.”

Finally, “prophetic” is the word that im-mediately comes to mind when read-ing Esther Webman’s “ThePersecution of the Jews in Germany

in Egyptian and Palestinian Public Discourses,1933-1939.” For in comparing the respectivenewspapers popular in each region — Al-Ahram in Egypt and Filastin in Palestine — shemakes crystal clear that while both papers cov-ered what was happening to the Jews in Eu-rope, Filastin’s overriding concern was the“problems” Palestinians saw attendant to thevery possibility of Jewish immigration to Pales-tine, a solution which was always talked aboutwhenever it came to the rescue of Europe’sJews. And in order to prevent that happening,Filastin did all it could! It minimized what washappening to the Jews in Europe. Articles werepublished about how the Germans were simplydefending themselves against Jew-Commu-nists. Then Filastin published an article “intro-ducing” its readers to Hitler’s Mein Kampf.“One of the subtitles of the article was ‘The So-cial Flaws of the Jews.’”

All in all, the above is but a snapshot of theabsorbing material Nazism, the Holocaust, andthe Middle East offers the reader.

REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN

NAZISM,

THE HOLOCAUST,

AND THE MIDDLE EAST

Throughout the Holocaust, in theshadow of their unprecedented per-secution by the German Nazi regimeand their collaborators, there were

Jews who endeavored to save their fellowJews — often beyond their immediate family oracquaintances. The conditions for rescue werenot always ripe and the attempts were not al-ways successful, but that did not deter these re-markable individuals and groups from trying.Jews saved other Jews through many kinds ofactivities — forging documents, assisting in lo-cating hiding places, smuggling across borders,providing much-needed food, clothing and med-icines, and more. These rescuers operated intheir local communities, ghettos and camps.They acted alone, as partisans or as part of or-ganized rescue groups.

Eleven of these inspiring stories feature in a

new online exhibition which was uploaded to YadVashem’s website to mark Holocaust Remem-brance Day 2020. Entitled “Rescue by Jews:‘One for All,’” the exhibition brings a small sampleof the countless stories of selfless bravery andsolidarity Jews exhibited during the Holocaust,despite the horrific circumstances in which theyfound themselves. The stories provide a glimpseinto the harrowing experiences, as well as im-measurable pride, of Jewish rescuers.

* * *Two of the stories included in the exhibition

are related, and involve many of the same braveindividuals who carried out these daring rescueattempts.

In April 1941, the Germans and the Italiansoccupied Yugoslavia. As part of their plan to dis-mantle the country, the Germans established apuppet state known as Independent Croatia

under the leadership of Ante Pavelić, the head ofthe racist Ustasha (Ustaša) movement. Duringthe years 1941–1945, the Pavelić regime brutallymurdered some 30,000 Jews, hundreds of thou-sands of Serbs and objectors to the regime, andthousands of Roma and Sinti. Heavy fines wereimposed on the Jews, their movements were re-stricted, and they were forced to wear yellowstars.

In late November 1941, the Ustasha authori-ties issued an order to the Jewish community ofOsijek to find a location to confine some 2,000women and children. The community heard thatin the town of Djakovo there was an abandonedflour mill belonging to the church, which couldhouse a large number of people. The church op-posed the idea of turning one of its propertiesinto a concentration camp, but the Ustasha nev-


JEWS WHO RESCUED JEWS


(Continued from page 2)and Ossi Warshawski) and her grandparents(Esther and Harry Rozmaryn and Rosa andIsaac Warshawski), all of whom survived theHolocaust. Dr. Yahalom shared her family’s 100-year journey of life during and after the Holo-caust. A similar presentation was done for theGenerationsForward group of the Holocaust andHuman Rights Education Center in Westchester.

To commemorate the 75th anniversaryof the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau,Dr. Yahalom presented an exhibit walk-through and lecture at Temple Emanuel

in Waterford, Connecticut, featuring “Architectureof Murder: the Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints.”This exhibit portrays the perpetrators and, throughblueprints, photographs and maps, highlights thepremeditation behind the construction and plan-ning of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentrationcamp. Dr. Yahalom also presented a professionaldevelopment workshop for students and faculty atWaterford High School.

Dr. Yahalom presented a professional devel-opment program to regional educators and grad-uate students at Kean University on “TheEichmann Trial.” The workshop provided an op-portunity for participants to enrich their under-standing about the educational pedagogy of YadVashem, the trial, its lessons about justice, hear-ing the voice of Holocaust survivors in a publicsetting for the first time, and how this turn ofevents transformed Holocaust education, aware-ness and commemoration forever.

A lecture and workshop to accompany theexhibit “Besa: Albanians Who Rescued JewsDuring the Holocaust,” currently on loan at theMobile Museum of Art in Mobile, Alabama, will

be presented by Dr. Yahalom to the museumcommunity via Zoom in June. She will also pres-ent a professional development workshop for re-gional educators, and participants will be eligiblefor professional development credit for attendingthe workshop.

The “No Child’s Play” and “The EichmannTrial” exhibits were the resources selected thisyear for the National History Day project at the

Donna Klein Jewish Academy in Boca Raton.Students and faculty were introduced to the “NoChild’s Play” and “The Eichmann Trial” exhibits,on loan from the American Society and curatedand developed by Yad Vashem. Dr. Yahalomworked with the faculty and students at DonnaKlein to guide the students through these two ex-hibits and incorporate this work into their seniorresearch projects in honor of National History Day.

Students and faculty of the Rabbi AlexanderS. Gross Hebrew Academy in Miami Beach re-ceived a professional development presentationby Dr. Yahalom to accompany the “No Child’sPlay” exhibit. Students completed a researchproject and presentation, under faculty direction,that included this exhibit. Special emphasis wasplaced on discussing Jewish victims, their livesbefore, during and after the war, and the human-ity of all victims, based on this learning model.

Dr. Yahalom attended a series of training ses-sions sponsored and developed by WEDU (WeEducate) of 3GNY. These sessions are struc-tured to train grandchildren of Holocaust sur-vivors to share and present their family’sexperiences of survival and rebirth during andafter the Holocaust, in the classroom. We will beworking with WEDU in an effort to promote andsustain these important educational messages.

*** For more information about ASYV educa-

tional programs and events, and Traveling Exhi-bitions, contact Marlene Warshawski Yahalom,PhD, Director of Education – [email protected]

BY MARLENE W. YAHALOM, PHD, director ofeducation of the ASYV

WORD GETS AROUND — HOLOCAUST

EDUCATION ACROSS THE MILES

Since the start of this pandemic, theAmerican Society for Yad Vashemhas had to find new and creative waysof connecting with our communities.

Although we cannot gather in person for the timebeing, our mission to educate and remember re-mains crucial and relevant. ASYV and YadVashem are constantly working to provide mean-ingful content to the public. If anything, thisunique time has demonstrated that we are trulya museum without borders.

Unable to convene for the remainder of ourASYV Speaker Series, we transitioned the lec-tures to an online platform. A prerecorded videoof “Woman and Resistance in the Holocaust” withDr. Na’ama Shik was sent out to our supportersin late April, followed by “Spiritual Survival: ArtDuring the Holocaust” with Eliad Moreh-Rosen-berg in mid-May. The latter even included a virtualtour of the Yad Vashem Art Museum.

We have also shared numerous Zoom lec-tures and presentations being offered by Yad

Vashem’s world-renowned scholars and cura-tors. Examples include “Aspects of Liberation, 75Years Later” with Ephraim Kaye and “The LastScion: Commemorating Holocaust SurvivorsWho Remained, Dying in Defense of the State ofIsrael” with Nurit Davidson.

Our Young Leadership Associates(YLA) have also kept active duringthese challenging times. The YLABook Club has been meeting virtu-

ally and continues to have meaningful discus-sions about the Holocaust and the contemporarychallenges we face in Holocaust remembrance.On the eve of Yom HaShoah, our YLA co-hosteda commemorative event with 3GNY as part of anew collaboration between our two organiza-tions. YLA board member Alex Levine discussedthe importance of being involved with YadVashem and the responsibility he has as a mem-ber of the Third Generation. The virtual eventwas live-streamed on Facebook, with hundredsof people tuning in from all around the globe.

Throughout the broadcast, messages came infrom New York, California, Las Vegas, Israel,Canada, Brazil and El Salvador!

Both as a group and as individuals, our youngleaders are finding ways to connect with othersin this age of social distancing. YLA Co-ChairRachel Shnay has been using her social mediaplatform to organize the delivery of hot meals toentire hospital units, all while supporting localkosher establishments. This initiative “is meantto be a kiddush HaShem to show that despitemany harsh accusations made against Jewishcommunities during this time, Jewish peoplecare about feeding and caring for EVERYONE,zero discrimination.” These are the values thatsurvivors inspire us to live by!

If there is anything we have learned from sur-vivors, it is resiliency. So, while we have no wayof knowing if or when things will return to “nor-mal,” we do know that we are capable of adapt-ing to a new “normal.” Every day we arediscovering new and effective ways to interactand connect from a distance. Through the use ofonline platforms and virtual activities, ASYV andYad Vashem will continue to uphold our missionto safeguard the memory of the past and impartits meaning to future generations.

BY JILL GOLTZER

A MUSEUM

WITHOUT BORDERS

Rabbi Israel Lau after liberation: an inspirational photo from

the “No Child's Play” exhibit.


(Continued from page 4)ertheless appropriated the mill, and on Decem-ber 2, 1941, some 1,200 women and children,mostly from Sarajevo, were brought there. OnDecember 20, another 700 people arrived. Thevast majority of the inmates were Jewish, withanother approximately 50 gentile Serbianwomen. Initially, the internal running of the campwas handled by the Jews. Two local Croatian po-licemen were stationed at the gate.

The Osijek Jewish community established awelfare committee to assist with the camp, whichrequired volunteers. A group of youngsters call-

ing themselves Leteća Ekipa (the “FlyingBrigade”) volunteered to go to Djakovo and or-ganize the camp. The members of the groupstayed in a hotel next to the town railway station,and went on foot to the site every day in order tomake the flour mill suitable for habitation. To-gether with the Jewish community, Leteća Ekipahelped build bunks, and obtained food, medi-cines and clothing for those imprisoned there.

Thanks to the efforts of the Osijek Jewishcommunity and bribes paid to the local police,the policemen permitted the removal of childrenfrom the camp and their safe passage to Jewishfamilies in Osijek and Vinkovci. Leo Grunwaldand Isidore Ferrera from Vinkovci arrived with atruck to collect the children.

Sarina Munchik (née Brodski, later ShulamitMunchik), from Sarajevo, who at the age of 16was a prisoner in Djakovo concentration camp,testified after the war:

“One day, we heard a rumor that they want toevacuate children… up to age 12 or 14 toVinkovci… and that families had already been or-ganized to adopt them. Mother got involved andsaid that I was born in 1928 and begged them totake me. Of course, our parting was extremelyhard, I didn’t want [to go] at all.”

Members of Leteća Ekipa went along withBrodski’s plan. They forged Sarina’s age andtook her out of the camp with dozens of otherchildren.

Leo Grunwald recalled: “The removal of 37 children up to age 12 was

permitted.... When we arrived at the Djakovocamp, there was a female Jewish doctor from theOsijek community who helped us prepare thechildren for departure to Vinkovci.… Some fam-ilies that knew me… approached me and askedme to take their children so that they would besaved. The truck was large and covered with

tarp, so I took advantage of the opportunity with-out considering the possible repercussions of myactions. Using the permit I had for 37 children, Itook 57 children, such that only the second digit,the number 7, matched the permit. The 57thchild I took was Sarina Brodski.”

The children were sent to live with Jewishfamilies in Vinkovci and Osijek. Some of themwere moved later to Split, which was in the areaof Croatia under Italian rule. Sarina reachedSplit, and from there was taken with a group ofchildren to Villa Emma in Nonantola, Italy. FromVilla Emma, the children, including Sarina, weresmuggled into Switzerland.

* * *

Also included in this rescue operationwere Gabriel-Gavro Sternberg andhis sister Leah. The Sternbergs hadarrived in Djakovo from Sarajevo in

late December. In his testimony, Gabriel de-scribed the camp:

“There was a large hall, and everyone had toclaim a piece of the floor… we were there forperhaps two weeks.… One day, they came witha truck and gathered many of the children. Therewere parents who didn’t allow their children toleave [the camp], but our mother said to us: Go,

it will be good for you.”Gabriel and Leah were transferred

to Vinkovci, where they were sepa-rated and placed with local Jewish

families. After some three months, they weresent to Osijek, where they were reunited withtheir cousin Leo Herman.

Gabriel and Leah’s mother Josephine (néeZeichner) remained imprisoned in Djakovo. Twoof Josephine’s sisters managed to escape toSplit, and tried to arrange for Gabriel, Leah andLeo to come live with them. In the spring of 1942,the sisters hired someone to bring the childrento Split. However, the children were abandonedin Zagreb, some 260 km (160 miles) north oftheir destination.

In Zagreb, the three managed to find a Jewishretirement home run by Ignac-Eliyahu Weiss.“There were old people there, and the three ofus, three children, me being the eldest, nine anda half, while they [Leah and Leo] were five and ahalf,” Gabriel later explained. “We slept togetherin the same bed because there wasn’t anyroom.… Mr. Weiss made sure we had food,clothes and a place to sleep, until one day… they[the Ustasha] decided that the elderly also hadto be taken.”

After the retirement home residents weregathered in a local school, Ignac Weiss smug-gled the children out and hid with them in an atticin Zagreb. His nephew Shimon met them thereand helped take care of them. Several weekslater, a Muslim woman sent by their aunts arrivedin Zagreb, and brought the three children to Split,where they were reunited.

In March 1942, local policemen guardingthe gate of the Djakovo camp were ex-pelled and replaced with Ustasha guardsfrom the Jasenovac concentration camp.

They had orders not to allow members of the Os-ijek community to enter the camp. The food ar-riving from the community was confiscated, andthe treatment of prisoners was brutal. In June1942, the camp was liquidated, and all thewomen and children were deported to Jaseno-vac and murdered upon arrival. Among themwere Gabriel and Leah’s mother, Josephine; Sa-rina’s mother, father and sister, Luna, Leo andDina Brodski; and Leo Herman’s mother, Bertha.During the liquidation of the camp, members ofthe Leteća Ekipa managed to escape through agap in the wall of a building and fled to Osijek.

In August 1942, the Jewish communities ofVinkovci and Osijek were also liquidated. Thechildren from Djakovo were sent to their deathsalong with the families who adopted them.Thankfully, Aryeh Hermoni (né Leo Herman),Gabriel Shenar-Sternberg and Leah Igner-Stern-berg survived in Split. They all emigrated to Is-rael after the war. Shulamit Sarina Munchik alsosurvived, having made her way to Switzerlandand then to Israel. Aryeh Hermoni passed awayin 2019.

Siblings Leah Igner and Gabriel Shenar cur-rently live in an assisted living facility in the cen-ter of Israel in adjacent apartments. During theprocess of curating this online exhibition, I wasthrilled to be able to connect Leah and Gabrielwith the nephew of Ignac-Eliyahu Weiss, ShimonTsachor-Weiss. They hope to meet as soon asthe current coronavirus crisis abates.

BY YONA KOBO, The Times of Israel

JEWS WHO RESCUED JEWS

The children saved by Ignac Weiss, director of the Jewish retirement home in Zagreb.


When the Warsaw ghetto uprisingerupted 77 years ago on April19, it was not just Jewish menwho decided to take up arms

against the Germans.Young Jewish women also fought in the five-

week battle before the crushing superiority ofthe Germans overwhelmed the insurgents.

Dubbed haluzzenmadein, or pioneer girls, aportmanteau from Hebrew and German, theyfascinated and terrified the Germans in equalmeasure.

One of the most remarkable was the under-ground assassin and partisan fighter NiutaTajtelbaum.

She fought tenaciously in the ghetto uprising,taking out a Waffen SS heavy machine-gunnest, and attacking German artillery that waspounding the ghetto.

However, Niuta had already built a formida-ble reputation in Warsaw as an undergroundfighter in the Communist People’s Guard, killingSS officers, attacking Germans-only cinemasand cafes and wrecking German supply lines insabotage attacks.

Details of her short life are few, but her per-sonal campaign against the Germans exempli-fied the values of heroism, courage, justice,loyalty and patriotism, magnified in the crucibleof the occupation.

She is quoted as saying, “I am a Jew. Myplace is in the struggle against the Nazis for thehonor of my people and for a free Poland!”

Known as the Heroine of Warsaw, she usedher girlish charm and lambent blue eyes tomake SS monsters drop their guard beforeeliminating them in cold blood.

Her most daring hit was astonishing in its au-daciousness.

She walked into the Gestapo headquartersin the high-security police district in Warsawdressed as a Polish farm girl with a kerchief onher head.

With an innocent look, she asked for a cer-tain officer, her target, about a “personal mat-ter.” Assuming she was pregnant, the guardsgave her a pass to the building and told herwhere to find her “boyfriend.”

She walked into a private office and shot theastonished German in the head with a pistol fit-ted with a silencer.

The legend that built up around her adds thedetail that she smiled at the guards who let herin.

In another operation, she killed twoGestapo officers and wounded a third, anagent of the feared organization. After thewounded agent was taken to the hospital,

she disguised herself as a doctor, entered thehospital and killed both the Gestapo agent andhis guard.

The few photographs that remain of Niutasuggest the innocence and absence of threatthat allowed her to get close enough to her vic-tims to pull the trigger.

However, they offer no hint of her contrarian,even rebellious nature, nor the deep well ofcourage that she drew on.

Niuta was born in October 1917 in Łódź to aHasidic family, but she eventually rejected thisdevout form of Judaism.

At high school, she joined an illegal Commu-nist group, but after the police revealed hermembership, she was expelled from school.

Nevertheless, she was admitted into WarsawUniversity. A few months before the outbreak ofWorld War II, she graduated in history and psy-chology.

In the Warsaw ghetto, she worked overtly asa manager in a boarding school on CeglanaStreet.

Covertly, though, she sought out contacts tothe Communist underground in the ghetto.

Shortly before the liquidation of the ghetto insummer 1942, she joined the People’s Guard,the armed resistance organization of the Com-munist Polish Workers’ Party..

Because of her appearance, she was or-dered to leave the ghetto and go to the “Aryan”side, where she adopted the alias WandaWitwicka.

Her job was to smuggle weapons into thesealed Jewish ghetto. Inside the ghetto, shebuilt a conspiratorial cell of Jewish resistancefighters and taught women how to useweapons.

In 1942, Niuta was involved in sabotagingGerman rail transport on the outskirts of War-saw, disrupting German supply routes to theeastern front.

The attacks were part of a wider campaignagainst German rail infrastructure carried out bythe Home Army and the People’s Guard.

The Germans held the People’s Guard re-sponsible and reacted with brutal retaliation. OnOctober 16, they hanged 50 Polish “Communistsaboteurs” and left them on the gallows for awhole day as a deterrent.

This in turn led to revenge by the People’sGuard. Under Niuta’s leadership, a group en-tered a German officers’ club in the center ofWarsaw and killed four officers and wounded10.

In January 1943, Niuta planted a bomb at theKammerlichtspiele cinema on Marschallstrasse,as Marszałkowska was called during the occu-pation.

She became an object of fear and fascina-tion among Germans. However, because heridentity was a mystery, they referred to her sim-ply as Little Wanda with the Pigtails.

Infuriated by her campaign of killings andsabotage, they offered 150,000 zlotys for infor-mation leading to her capture.

After the ghetto uprising, she went under-ground in the “Aryan” part of Warsaw and tookpart in further sabotage campaigns.

However, when she returned to her apart-ment on July 19, 1943, the Gestapo was waitingfor her. She tried to commit suicide, but she hadno time to swallow the vial of poison.

She was interrogated for weeks in Pawiak,the Gestapo prison in Warsaw.

Her tormentors subjected her to bestial tor-ture and finally murdered her. However, she didnot betray any of her fellow partisans.

On the second anniversary of the ghetto up-rising, April 19, 1945, she was awarded theOrder of the Grunwald Cross, Third Class.

BY STUART DOWELL, The First News

“I AM A JEW. MY PLACE

IS IN THE STRUGGLE

AGAINST THE NAZIS...”

Niuta Tajtelbaum, who once walked into Gestapo headquar-

ters to assassinate a Nazi officer.


As a child, I was obsessed with AnneFrank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. LikeAnne, I wanted to grow up to be awriter; like her, I kept a diary (though

less faithfully), which for a time I addressed, follow-ing her model, as Kitty; like her, I agonized overhow little my mother understood me and longed toswoon in a boy’s arms. My obsession peaked atthe age of eight with a visit to the Secret Annexe,in Amsterdam — the warren of rooms where theFrank family hid from the Nazis. I had imagined itcountless times and had thefloor plan memorized, but see-ing it was a shock: it was somuch smaller than I had pic-tured.

That may have been the mo-ment I began to understand howgreat was the distance betweenAnne’s world and my own. As agirl from a family of survivors,coming of age in nineteen-eight-ies America, I felt the Holocaustas a tangible presence, simulta-neously inescapable and un-knowable. My grandparents,Jews from Lodz who fled eastwhen the Nazis began their ad-vance into Poland, had betterluck than many: taken prisonerby the Soviets, they spent muchof the war in a Siberian labor camp. Some of theirfamily had already made it to Palestine, but mostof those who remained behind were sent first to theLodz ghetto and then to Auschwitz. My great-grandmother died there, but my great-aunt sur-vived.

Those who died in the camps left no testi-monies, and, when I was growing up, the idea ofwriting imaginative literature for children about thedeath camps was considered almost sacrilegious.In February 1977, The Horn Book, a magazine de-voted to literature for children, published an articleby Eric A. Kimmel, with the title “Confronting theOvens.” Kimmel laid out a taxonomy for children’sliterature about the Holocaust, a genre that wasthen in its infancy. If the Holocaust could be pic-tured as something like Dante’s Inferno, a de-scending order of circles with the crematoriums atthe very bottom, the books that existed when Kim-mel made his study were situated on the middle toupper rings. They told stories of resistance, ofrefugees, of people under occupation — but not ofthe camps. Kimmel could find only one such workof fiction: Marietta Moskin’s I Am Rosemarie, inwhich a girl and her family are sent to Bergen-Belsen. Yet even they are “comparatively fortu-nate,” Kimmel writes, as they were spared thetransports east to the extermination camps. And,of course, because they survived.

Why, Kimmel wondered, had no writer for chil-dren broached “the ultimate tragedy”? He con-cluded that it had to do with the irreconcilabletension between the subject and our assumptionsabout children’s literature. To write about the Holo-caust realistically, in all its horror, violates the tacitpromise of writing for young readers, he main-tained: “not to be too violent, too accusing, too de-pressing.” At the same time, a story that won’t keepyoung readers up at night contradicts the historicalreality. Kimmel continued, “To put it simply, is massmurder a subject for a children’s novel? Five yearsago, we might have said no; ten years ago we cer-

tainly would have. Now, however, I think the ap-pearance of a novel set in the center of the lowestcircle is only a matter of time.”

It took eleven years. In 1988, Jane Yolen, whois best known for picture books, published The

Devil’s Arithmetic. In it, shecame up with an ingenious so-lution to the problem Kimmelhad identified: employing a fan-tastical framing device thatstops the atrocities of life in anextermination camp from beingutterly overwhelming for heryoung readers. The book’s pro-tagonist, a rebellious Americanpreteen named Hannah, ismagically whisked back to aPolish shtetl and then, alongwith its residents, transported toa camp. Four years later, Yolenelaborated on the formula withBriar Rose, which plays with thetropes of children’s literature byusing Sleeping Beauty as atemplate for a survivor’s story.

Her next book, Mapping the Bones (Philomel), al-ludes to Hansel and Gretel as it follows two siblingsfrom the Lodz ghetto through a period among agroup of partisans and, finally, to a death camp.

Yolen spent several years researching and writ-ing The Devil’s Arithmetic. She based Hannah onher own adolescent self: “a little bit whiney, slightlyuncomfortable in her own skin, able to make upstories on the spot.”

When the novel opens, Hannah iscomplaining about having to go toa Seder hosted by her survivor rel-atives. “I’m tired of remembering,”

she says. Her grandfather Will frightens her byyelling at the TV set when-ever footage of the campscomes on; once, when sheused a ballpoint pen to ink acopy of his tattoo on her arm,thinking it would please him,he screamed at her in Yid-dish. At the Seder, a littletipsy from the watered-downwine she has been allowed todrink, Hannah opens theapartment door to welcomethe prophet Elijah — a keymoment in the Seder ritual —and finds herself transportedto Poland in 1942. Suddenly,she’s Chaya, the niece of Gitland Shmuel, siblings whohave taken her in after thedeath of her parents. At first,Hannah/Chaya thinks she’sstumbled onto a movie set orbecome the victim of an elaborate joke. There’seven some humor in her interactions with othershtetl girls, who are puzzled by her references topizza and General Hospital. But when the guestsarrive for Shmuel’s wedding to Fayge, a rabbi’sdaughter from a nearby village, Nazis are waiting

at the synagogue to transport them all for “reset-tlement.” To Hannah’s mounting frustration, no onewill listen to her warnings:

“The men down there,” she cried out desper-ately, “they’re not wedding guests. They’re Nazis.Nazis! Do you understand? They kill people. Theykilled — kill — will kill Jews. . . . Six million of them!I know. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. Wehave to turn the wagons around. We have to run!”

Reb Boruch shook his head.“There are not six million Jews inall of Poland, my child.”

“No, Rabbi, six million in Polandand Germany and Holland andFrance and . . .”

“My child, such a number.” Heshook his head and smiled, but thecorners of his mouth turned downinstead of up. “And as for running— where would we run to? God iseverywhere. There will always beNazis among us.”

Yolen renders Hannah’s plightin language and imagery thatmake sense to younger readers:she is packed into a boxcar “worsethan the worst subway jam she’dever been in.” But the author doesnot condescend by evading theawful details. The stench of humanvomit and excrement in the car grows thick; a childdies in its mother’s arms. When the train finallystops, after four days, Hannah is so thirsty that“she could feel her tongue as big as a sausage be-tween her teeth.” Her head is shaved; she receivesa tattoo. A girl named Rivka introduces her to thecamp rules: “One does not ask why. . . . A personis not killed here, but chosen. They are not cre-mated in the ovens, they are processed.” When the

commandant chooses Rivkafor “processing,” Hannah goesinstead, saving her. But, asshe walks through the door tothe gas chamber, she is re-stored to her real life in Amer-ica, now with a newappreciation for her relatives’stories.

At a convention for librari-ans soon after its publication,The Devil’s Arithmetic was at-tacked by an editor at a chil-dren’s-book journal whoasked why readers shouldwaste time on Yolen’s fictionwhen true chronicles, likeAnne Frank’s diary, wereavailable. To resort to fantasy,he said, trivialized the Holo-caust. The science fictionwriter Orson Scott Card struck

back in the magazine Fantasy and Science Fiction.Yolen’s book, he wrote, might actually be morepowerful for its audience than the diary, not onlybecause Frank’s account ends “where the true hor-ror begins” but also because Yolen’s protagonist isa typical American preteen. The Devil’s Arithmetic

HOW SHOULD CH

DEAL WITH THE


allows readers to imagine themselves inHannah/Chaya’s place, Card wrote, in “the mostterrible part of the most terrible crime mankind iscapable of.”

In the years since The Devil’s Arithmetic ap-peared, other writers for young readers haveimitated Yolen’s method of introducing a fan-tastical element. Tomi Ungerer’s Otto: The

Autobiography of a Teddy Bear affectingly tells thestory of the friendship be-tween two boys, one Ger-man and one Jewish,through the fanciful adven-tures of a stuffed bear thatpasses between them.Markus Zusak’s The BookThief, about a girl in NaziGermany who befriends ayoung Jewish man in hiding,is narrated in the voice ofDeath.

But the book that hasdrawn by far the most atten-tion — The Boy in theStriped Pajamas, by theIrish writer John Boyne — isnot explicitly fantastical. Abest seller that was alsomade into a popular movie,it is told from the point of

view of Bruno, a nine-year-old German boy whoselife is upended when his father, a Nazi officer, be-comes the commandant of Auschwitz. Bored in hisnew surroundings, less luxurious and far more iso-lated than the family’s former home in Berlin, hediscovers that from his bedroom window he cansee, behind a fence, what looks like a whole city ofpeople, all dressed in strange striped pajamas. Outfor a walk one day, he finds a boy his own age sit-ting by the fence. They begin to talk, learn that theyhave the same birthday, and form a friendship.

The book has been both celebrated for its strik-ing, parable-like style and condemned for sloppymoral equivalency and a cavalier treatment of his-torical fact. Even if a nine-year-old boy managedto get past the initial selection at Auschwitz — mostchildren were gassed on arrival — he would nothave had the leisure to sit and talk for hours. Noone, prisoner or bystander, was allowed to go any-where near the camp’s heavily guarded fence,much less to reach or crawl under it, as happenslater in the novel. Bruno, whose passivity and lackof curiosity suggest a child much younger thannine, never asks why he is forbidden to cross thefence. Improbably for the son of a Nazi, he doesnot know what a Jew is — or whether he mighthimself be one.

Boyne, who is not Jewish, has said that hespent only a few days writing the book. He has de-fended his approach by saying that the writer’s ob-ligation is to the “emotional truth” and that it’s“presumptuous to assume that from today’s per-spective one can truly understand the horrors ofthe concentration camps.” This seems disingenu-ous. Whether or not it’s possible to understand an-other person’s horrific experience, writers andreaders of fiction operate under the assumption

that such an understanding is worth trying toachieve. Holocaust novels — for adults as well asfor young readers — tend to include extensive af-terwords detailing the stories on which they arebased and the ways, if any, in which they deviatefrom their sources. Such research alone isn’t suffi-cient to make a novel effective, but at least it as-sures the reader that the novel has a basis inreality. Worryingly, Boyne’s book is now often in-cluded in Holocaust-studies curricula at schools,and many teachers say that young readers whofirst learn about the Holocaust by reading it form adrastically ahistorical impression of what tookplace.

The comparison with Yolen is telling. Not onlyare her Holocaust books extensively researched,and their departures from historical fact scrupu-lously noted, but her fantasy framing devices alsoreflect a kind of imaginative humility about the dif-ficulty of “truly understanding” — something towhich Boyne pays only lip service. A book that in-volves time travel deliberately relinquishes the pos-sibility of being taken as historical fact.

Another of Yolen's works, Mapping the Bones,has points in common with her previous Holocaustnovels, but it is also different, in a way that reflectshow the genre she helped to create has changedin the three decades since.Although it uses Hansel andGretel as a loose model, thefantastical element operatesmostly at the level of allusion,and the book unfolds as ahistorical novel.

It is told from the perspec-tive of teen-age twins, Chaimand Gittel Abramowicz.When the story begins, theyare living with their parents inthe Lodz ghetto and, like theiralmost-namesakes in thefairy tale, they are starving.The situation worsens whena family of displaced GermanJews arrives to share theirapartment. Soon the familymembers learn that theirnames are on a list for thenext transport — a notification known in ghettoslang as a “wedding invitation.” They make a planto escape, but things go awry, and the children,separated from their parents, spend weeks wan-dering in the forest with a band of partisans. Withthe Soviet border in sight, they are ambushed byanother group of partisans, who capture the chil-dren and tell them they’re being taken to a camp.

The camp — Yolen calls it Sobanek, an amal-gam of actual names — is populated mainly bychildren, whose small fingers are useful for stuff-ing gunpowder into munitions. Those who growtoo big, they learn, “simply . . . disappear.” An evildoctor presides over the camp and its killings: thewicked witch, in a new shape. In this “fairy taleworld gone mad,” the doctor comes bearingcandy, which he doles out in exchange for infor-mation. It soon becomes clear that he has a par-ticular interest in sets of twins such as Chaim and

Gittel.As always, Yolen is excellent on the mundane

details that make her story real to younger read-ers: the pebble in Chaim’s boot that plagues himas the family make their escape; his anguish overleaving behind his model plane when his back-pack grows too heavy. The hints of Hansel andGretel — a handful of pebbles tossed off a cart“so we can find our way home”; the camp’s nick-name, House of Candy — are fairly subtle, butthe novel channels a larger network of mythicalallusions. Chaim, like a fairy-tale characterwhose tongue has been cut out, is functionallymute; because of an incapacitating stutter, hecan speak only five words at a time. He compen-sates by writing poetry, using discarded bagswhen paper is hard to find. During the period inthe forest, he is stricken with despair and aban-dons writing. But when he and Gittel arrive at thecamp, another boy tells him, chillingly, “Just be-cause we are in hell doesn’t make us fallen an-gels.” The comment awakens Chaim: “He coulddo something with that if he could bear to writeagain. And had some light to write by. If he stillhad his journal. All of which, he told himself,sounds like the impossible three tasks given tothe hero of a fairy tale.”

In The Devil’s Arithmetic the primary emo-tional pull comes from the struggle of acharacter from a younger generation tocome to grips with what happened to her

grandparent. But, having dispensed with thisframework, Mapping the Bones immerses us inChaim and Gittel’s struggles directly. There’s no

reason that Yolen should repeatherself, of course, and it makessense that the troubles of sur-vivors’ descendants don’t feel aspressing as they did thirty yearsago. Most children today willnever see a survivor’s tattooedarm. Those of us who did arelikely trying to figure out how toapproach the Holocaust with ourown children, wanting them torecognize its significance in theirfamily history without allowingthat knowledge to burden or de-fine them.

Still, to me, there’s somethingessential about the interactionsamong generations in the storieswe tell about the Holocaust. InYolen’s first two Holocaust nov-

els, a younger person literally bears witness tothe stories of an older generation — either by ex-periencing them herself, as Hannah does, or bylistening to the testimony of survivors. And thereader, by imagining herself in the place of themain character, can vicariously bear witness, too.If there’s a consolation in reading these books,that’s where it can be found. “There is no waythat fiction can come close to touching how trulyinhuman, alien, even satanic, was the efficientmachinery of death at the camps,” Yolen wrote inan afterword to The Devil’s Arithmetic. “Fictioncannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can bethat witness, that memory.” We may emerge fromthese books without grasping the true horror oftheir stories. But at least we’ve learned how to lis-ten to them.

BY RUTH FRANKLIN, The New Yorker

ILDREN’S BOOKS

E HOLOCAUST?


At 100 years old, Jozef Walaszczyk isPoland’s oldest living rescuer ofJews. But he was fortunate enoughjust to survive World War II. As a par-

tisan fighter who specialized in smuggling armsin Nazi-occupied Poland, Walaszczyk assumedthat the Gestapo would catch up with him atsome point.

He just expected it to happen on the field ofbattle, not while he was in bed with his new girl-friend Irena.

In 1941, Walaszczyk (prounced Valash-chick)was in a room at the Grabowska Hotel in War-saw when he heard Nazi officers outside theirdoor.

“At first, I thought they were there for me, thatsomeone talked,” Walaszczyk said.

But as he listened to them, it became clearthat the Nazis were there to look for Jews, notmembers of the Polish resistance. Walaszczyk,who isn’t Jewish, was relieved at first.

Then he saw that his girlfriend was “com-pletely terrified.” With the Gestapo barking or-ders outside, Irena told him that she was Jewish— a fact that risked not only her life but his aswell if they were caught together in the samehotel room.

What followed was an unlikely and epic storyof romance, heroism and brushes with Nazi cap-ture. Walaszczyk’s efforts to save Irena and over50 other Jews earned him the title RighteousAmong the Nations in 2002.

At the Grabowska, Walaszczyk quickly de-

vised a plan to keep himself and Irena alive.He hid his girlfriend behind a wardrobe,

locked the room’s door behind him, handed hisID to an officer in the corridor and headed to ashared bathroom where he pretended to vomitnoisily. When the Germans, whosearched the hotel room by room,reached the door that Walaszczykhad locked, the hotel owner ex-plained to them that it belonged to theman puking his guts out.

The ruse saved the couple’s life,but it changed their relationship.

“We had been lucky, but I beganbearing a grudge against Irena for nottelling me about her situation, whichrisked both our lives,” saidWalaszczyk, whose memory ofevents that transpired 80 years agoseems as crisp as if they happenedto him last week.

Still, Walaszczyk was in love with Irena. “It was true love, but the way 20-year-olds

love,” he said. Walaszczyk knew Irena stood little chance of

surviving without high-quality forged identity pa-pers. She had a false ID, but it was of poor qual-ity and would not stand up to even the mostrandom inspection, he said.

A factory foreman in Warsaw who spoke ex-cellent German, Walaszczyk was able to travelacross Poland using his work as cover and dis-tribute arms, cash and other supplies to resist-

ance units hunkering down in various parts ofPoland.

He decided to use contacts in the village ofRegnow, situated between Warsaw and Lodz, tohelp with the papers for Irena.

“I told them the whole truth,” he said, “be-cause if they decided to help, they’d be riskingtheir lives.”

Three days later, with Irena living in a safehouse in Warsaw that Walaszczyk had arrangedfor her, the Regnow mayor agreed toWalaszczyk’s request. But there was a catch:Walaszczyk would have to pay handsomely andmarry Irena, whom he had met only a few weeksearlier, to make the fake identity story work.

“The decision was easy,” Walaszczyk re-called. “Irena was dear to me and her safety was


A LOVE AFFAIR

THAT MADE HIM RISK EVERYTHING

Jozef Walaszczyk, who saved more than 50 Jews during the Holocaust.

Retired Dutch general Toine Beuker-ing — a candidate for chairman of theSenate — said earlier this month thatthe Jews were “chased like docile

lambs into the gas chambers.” This remark, forwhich he later apologized, once again raised theissue of the huge historical distortion of the Dutchrole during World War II. The Dutch, who collab-orated massively with the German occupiers,now exaggerate Dutch wartime resistance andunderemphasize the disproportionately large roleof Jews in it.

In May 1940, a few days after the Germansinvaded the Netherlands, the Dutch queen, Wil-helmina of Oranje, fled to London without con-sulting her ministers. Most ministers followedher. They left no instructions to the remainingfunctionaries about how to act during the occu-pation. The Dutch army capitulated within a fewdays.

The Dutch Supreme Court was among thefirst to betray the Jews. In 1940, the Germansasked all Dutch officials and teachers to sign adeclaration that they were not Jewish. Almost allconcerned signed, including the non-Jewishmembers of the Supreme Court. So did almost

all employees of the Ministry of Justice. The Ger-mans used this declaration to exclude Jews fromofficial positions. Lodewijk Visser, the Jewishpresident of the Supreme Court, was dismissedby the Germans in early 1941.

In 2011, a book was published about theSupreme Court during the German occupation.The authors concluded that this court “lost thehalo of the highest maintainers of justice in theNetherlands.” When the book was publicly pre-sented, the then President of the SupremeCourt, Geert Corstens, said the signing of thedeclaration in 1940 “went against everything forwhich the Supreme Court should have stood.”

Dutch Jews, who were forced to wear yellowstars, were increasingly isolated in a nationwhere the number of collaborators far exceededthe membership of the prewar Dutch NationalSocialist party (NSB). Most of the population dis-played total indifference toward the Jews andtheir fate.

Members of the Dutch police knew it was theirtask to arrest only criminals, yet they greatly as-sisted the Germans in arresting Jews, includingbabies and the elderly. Jews were transported byDutch railways to the Westerbork transit camp,

where they were guarded by Dutch military po-lice. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews — over 70%of the prewar Jewish population — were sent totheir deaths in the German camps in Poland.

In 2018, an exhibition about the Jews andthe Royal House of Oranje took place at theAmsterdam Jewish Museum. There onecould listen to an audio recording of the few

sentences Queen Wilhelmina allocated to herJewish citizens on Dutch radio in her multiplespeeches during the war. They were spoken inan offhand manner. These few impassive lineswere contrasted at the exhibition by the record-ing of her fiery talk against the mobilization ofDutch men to work in Germany.

A small percentage of the Dutch population —very courageous people — helped Jews.Twenty-four thousand Jews went into hiding. Ofthese, 16,000 survived. Many others were be-trayed or caught by Dutch volunteer organiza-tions — a civil and a police one — the membersof which were rewarded monetarily for every Jewthey captured.

In the Dutch resistance, Jews, who numberedless than 1.5% of the population before the war,


DID DUTCH JEWS GO LIKE LAMBS

TO THE GAS CHAMBERS?


Over two consecutive days in earlyAugust 1942, all the Jews hiding inthe village of Urozhaynaya in theCaucasus Mountains were mur-

dered. The 2,500 victims had believed until thevery last moment that the long arm of the Naziregime would not reach their distant place ofresidence, but their hopes were dashed. Thatsummer the German army managed to captureparts of the area from the Red Army, and whenthe SS entered the gates of the village, they ledthe Jews to a nearby river and shot them todeath.

Today, 78 years later, the bodes are stillburied there, in one gigantic mass grave, with-out a monument or any documentation. Localresidents of Urozhaynaya, located near theRussian city of Stavropol, have left the killingsite desolate: They never built on the land, nordid they use it for agricultural purposes.

Only one Jew managed to evade the bitterfate of the community and survive the horrors —but she remembers nothing of them since shewas a 10-month-old infant at the time.

Larisa Breicher (née Shavzin), 78, a residentof New York and a retired teacher, was hiddenby Christian neighbors and survived thanks toa Nazi officer, who spared her life after he waspromised that she would be baptized.

For decades authorities dealing with repara-tions refused to believe Breicher’s story or rec-ognize her as a Holocaust survivor. Onlyrecently, thanks to a comprehensive archivalstudy undertaken by some of her relatives, hasshe received the hoped-for recognition — andattendant compensation.

In addition, the family who saved Breicherfrom certain death — but never did baptizeher — were recognized posthumously as Right-eous Among the Nations.

Larisa Breicher was born in 1941 while hermother Manya and her grandparents were flee-ing from Kishinev, Moldavia, to the Caucasus.Her father, David, had been drafted into the RedArmy shortly beforehand, with the German in-vasion of the Soviet Union.

Like many Jewish refugees who fled to theeast, the Shavzins hoped that the Nazis wouldnot arrive in remote Urozhaynaya. But in thesummer of 1942, reality caught up with them.The German army occupied large parts of theCaucasus and held onto them for about fourmonths, during which about 31,000 peoplewere murdered, 19,000 of them Jews.

Area residents were ordered to hand overthe Jews, and anyone who hid them was se-verely punished. But thanks to the exceptionalinitiative, resourcefulness and courage of herChristian neighbors, Konstantin and AnnaBobin, little Larisa Shavzin was saved. TheBobins had heard from one of their relatives —who collaborated with the Germans — about aplan to eliminate the entire Jewish population oftheir village. Without delay, they rushed to theShavzins’ home, and asked them to give themthe infant so as to save her life.

Manya, who hesitated at first but acceded to

the request in the end, was murdered shortlythereafter, as were all the Jews hiding in thevicinity.

The Bobin family watched over Larisa. In themorning they would hide the baby in a field ofsunflowers, under the watchful eye of their 15-year-old daughter; in the evening, they wouldbring her home. Over time, however, rumorsspread about a Jewish baby and reached theNazi commanders stationed in town. Residents

were assembled and given an ultimatum tohand the baby over within 24 hours. If not,warned the Nazis, the entire family of rescuerswould be apprehended and then executed.

The Bobins were naturally torn between theirown existential fears and concern for the wel-fare of Larisa. In a last-gasp effort, Anna Bobinembarked on a suicide mission. She knockedon the door of the German regional com-mander, and pleaded for the life of the Jewishbaby. After about an hour, the family receivedhis surprising decision: The Germans wouldshow mercy for little Larisa, and allow theBobins to continue to take care of her — oncondition that they would raise the child as aChristian.

The devoted family continued to care for thebaby until the winter of 1943, when the RedArmy reoccupied the region and expelled theGerman forces. After the war was over, Larisawas found by her uncle, who brought her to herfather David, who had seen combat in Stalin-grad, Prague and Berlin, and received manymedals for heroism.

Eventually, David Shavzin emigrated to Is-rael (he is buried in Netanya), but his daughterdid not accompany him. She worked as a

teacher in the Soviet Union, emigrated in 1976to the United States, where she worked in edu-cation as well, and married twice.

Over the years Larisa Breicher maintainedwarm relations with the family of her rescuersin the Caucasus. Later their descendants joinedthe circle, and even met and got to know oneanother. The relationship continued even afterthe Bobins and their daughter passed away.

Although the story of her rescue wasnot a secret per se, Breicher keptthe details to herself for decades,and only recently began to open up

about them. At one point she told her story toEdward Breicher, the son of her second hus-band, Alex; he resides in the Israeli town ofKiryat Yam, north of Haifa. Breicher, whoteaches mechanical engineering and is an am-ateur historian, picked up the gauntlet and de-cided to research the story in depth, takingadvantage of his command of Russian and Ger-man. Joining him in the endeavor was his son,David Breicher-Magen, a historian.

“We started by collecting documents aboutthe Red Army and the German army, which re-ferred to events at that time,” Edward Breichertold Haaretz, noting that they found quite a bitof information in the government archives in theStavropol district. After conducting more intenseresearch, Breicher says, they were surprised tolearn that unlike Larisa — who didn’t reveal thesaga of her rescue to anyone — residents in thearea actually knew the story, having learnedabout it in school or after reading about it in thelocal press.

Breicher passed on the archival materials heand his son had collected to Yad Vashem inJerusalem, along with a request that the Bobinsbe recognized as Righteous Among the Na-tions.

“Many people are alive today thanks to theBobin family,” he wrote Yad Vashem. “Theyacted out of humanity, compassion and love ofman. In the sea of death and destruction thatsurrounded them, they endangered their livesand that of their daughter in order to rescue aJewish baby. They continued to raise her evenafter the end of the Nazi occupation, thinkingthat her entire family had perished — until shewas gathered into her father’s arms.”

Several weeks later, he was informed thathis efforts had borne fruit: About two years agonow, Konstantin and Anna Bobin’s grand-daughter was invited to Moscow, where she re-ceived her grandparents’ Righteous Among theNations certificate, which she later placed ontheir grave.

But Edward Breicher’s activity did not endthere. He is now working to build a monumentto the Jews — among them Larisa’s mother —who were murdered and buried in the massgrave in Urozhaynaya, and is trying to bring theBobins’ granddaughter to Israel. By law she isentitled to residency status there as a descen-dant of rescuers of Jews.

BY OFER ADERET, Haaretz

OVER TWO DAYS ALL JEWS IN THIS

VILLAGE WERE SLAUGHTERED

Anna and Konstantin Bobin, the Christian neighbors who

saved Larisa Breicher from the 1942 massacre of Jews in the

Russian village of Urozhaynaya.


Nazis are documented as one of themost horrific, brutal and sadisticgroups of genocidal murderers inhistory. They were insatiable in their

lust for Jewish blood, and in their quest to de-humanize all Jews. Humiliating their victims, in-cluding children and infants, was sport.Emotional and physical torture of their victimsbecame a practiced fetish. A human mind can-not conceive anything worse than a Nazi. How-ever, is it possible for depravity to providesomething even more cruel and sadistic?

Nazis were not alone in their bloodlust.Lithuanians volunteered en masse to murderJews. Lithuanians led the way by completing agenocide of Lithuanian Jews prior to Ger-many’s official determination to begin the “FinalSolution.” Lithuanian Prime Minister Skirpa wasone of the first to propose the genocide of Jewsto Nazis, and Lithuanians gleefully complied.The 220,000 Jews who were murdered inLithuania were not a sufficient number to sati-ate Lithuanian bloodlust; therefore, Lithuanianmurderers sought more.

Germans gave Lithuanians permission to goto Belarus to murder Jews in Minsk, Borisovand Slutsk districts. The documented crimesare as follows:

October 8, 1941: Lithuanian Second Bat-talion soldiers shot 617 Jews in the town ofDukor in the Minsk region.

October 10–11, 1941: battalion soldiersshot 188 civilians in the town of Rudensk in theMinsk region.

October 14, 1941: the battalion shot 1,300civilians (mainly Jews) at Smilovich in theMinsk region.

October 15–16 and 18: they shot 1,775Jews and Communists in Minsk.

October 21, 1941: soldiers from the bat-talion’s first platoon shot about 1,000 Jews andCommunists.

October 28–29, 1941: the battalion mur-dered about 5,000 Jews in Slutsk.

In the autumn of 1941 the Lithuanian Sec-ond Police Battalion, together with Germans,murdered about 46,000 people in Belarus, in-cluding about 9,000 Soviet POWs and 12 So-viet underground members. The overwhelmingmajority of the victims were Jews. The Lithuan-ian Second Police battalion was widely knownfor its sadism and brutality. Juozas Krikštaponiswas in the leadership of this battalion.

Commissioner General of Belarus WilhelmKube wrote in protest to his superior and to Re-ichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler: The town wasa picture of horror during the action. With inde-scribable brutality on the part of both the Ger-man police officers and particularly theLithuanian partisans, the Jewish people, butalso among them Belarusians, were taken outof their dwellings and herded together. Every-where in the town shots were to be heard andin different streets the corpses of shot Jews ac-cumulated. The Belarusians were in greatestdistress to free themselves from the encir-clement. The letter concluded: I am submittingthis report in duplicate so that one copy may beforwarded to the Reich Minister. Peace andorder cannot be maintained in Belarus withmethods of that sort. To bury seriouslywounded people alive who worked their wayout of their graves again is such a base andfilthy act that the incidents as such should bereported to the Führer and Reichsmarshall.

Slutsk district commissar Heinrich Carl wasalso horrified by these massacres. In his letter ofOctober 30, 1941, to the German general com-missar in Minsk, he wrote: “… On the methodsof executing the operation, that, very sorry to say,I must admit, that they were almost equal tosadism. During the operation the very city ap-peared horrible. The unspeakably brutal Germanpolice officers, and especially the Lithuanian par-tisans, dragged Jews out of their homes, andamong them were Belarusians, and packedthem into a single location. There were bulletsflying everywhere in the city, and on some streetswhole heaps of the corpses of shot Jews turnedup. … I ask only that my one request be hon-ored: in the future make sure to save me fromthis police battalion!”

The crimes of Krikštaponis were alreadywell known when Lithuania began honoring himas a national hero. In 1996, the Lithuanian cityUkmerge named a center square to honorJuozas Krikštaponis.

In that same year, a wooden memorial crosswas erected on the bunker where Krikštaponisdied. In 2006 an obelisk was built next to thiscross.

In 1997, the Lithuanian government grantedKrikštaponis legal status as a soldier’s volun-teer. On October 31, 2002, the president ofLithuania granted Krikštaponis posthumous na-tional honors. Krikštaponis’s crimes remain well

known to the government and are even admit-ted by it, however, the government declines torevoke his honors. Clearly, Jewish victims areof no consequence to Lithuania. To give thesevictims a personal face, the family of IsraeliPresident Shimon Peres was from this area. Itis likely that some of his relatives were mur-dered by Krikštaponis and his gang. TheLithuanian government tells the internationalJewish community that the country regrets its“loss” of Jews, but its domestic actions showthe opposite sentiment. Are we to accept theGovernment’s words or its very deliberate andvery loud actions?

In past eras, it was standard that Jewswould be accused of crimes. For exam-ple, the Dreyfus Affair of 1894 and theBeilis trial of 1913 are two of the more

prominent of these cases. Those default accu-sations were halted after the Holocaust, but aninversion of this theory has been developed inLithuania. The new prevailing theory of theLithuanian government is that no Lithuaniancould have perpetrated a crime against a Jew.Its construct is that Lithuanians who murderedJews are elevated to hero status, with strict de-nials regarding their crimes. Krikštaponis isonly one such example. So many LithuanianHolocaust perpetrators have been elevated tohero status that one wonders if having mur-dered Jews was a criterion for Lithuanian na-tional honors.

Cases such as Dreyfus and Beilis led to thepervasive anti-Semitism that infested Europe,directly leading into the Holocaust. Lithuanianow leads the world in claiming that being aHolocaust perpetrator is not a character stain.seventy-five years since the conclusion of theShoah in Lithuania, it is inconceivable that anycountry would still be defending Nazi collabo-rators; nonetheless, Lithuania is doing it.

Recently the Lithuanian government went tocourt to claim that the Lithuanian Holocaust per-petrator Jonas Noreika is not responsible for hiscrimes, and, like Krikštaponis, should remain anational hero. Government ministers officially ig-nore and deny the dozens of documents in theirown archives that prove Noreika’s guilt and theydeny eyewitness accounts of his crimes and tes-timony from his own family. This will be the firsttime that a government has legally sought to de-fend a Nazi collaborator.

The inversions of the Dreyfus Affair and theBeilis trial are now the Lithuanian norm. 124years after the Dreyfus Affair began, it remainsa stain on France. The Noreika Affair will simi-larly remain a stain on Lithuania for genera-tions, unless there is a dramatic change beforethe trial. Jews are no longer impacted byLithuania; this time the damage inures toLithuanian national dignity and identity. Alreadyone out of every three high school studentssays he/she wishes to leave Lithuania forever.More than 80% say they have “been thinkingabout emigrating.” Lithuania accounts for lessthan 1% of the EU population; certainly no ra-tional business person will invest in a state withsuch overt leanings toward Nazi collaboration.The nation’s failure to denounce its enthusias-tic participation of the past makes it an uncer-tain partner for the future.

BY GRANT GOCHIN, The Times of Israel

TOO ABHORRENT

EVEN FOR NAZIS


(Continued from page 10)extremely important to me.”

Walaszczyk and his new wifemoved into an apartment in War-saw, and all seemed well for awhile. But a few months later, in

October 1941, Irena was arrested with 20 otherJewish women. They were friends from beforethe war who had gathered to alleviate their lone-liness. All had false non-Jewish identities, but thegathering raised suspicion.

Again, Walaszczyk sprang into action: Usinghis underground contacts, he learned that thePolish police and German officers holding thewomen were amenable to bribes. There was awindow of a few hours before the detainees wereprocessed, and Walaszczyk used it.

He succeeded, but again there was a catch:He would need to pay for the release of all 21women. The price was a hefty two pounds ofgold that he had to produce within hours.

“It wasn’t easy,” said Walaszczyk, adding thathe borrowed some money and leveraged hisservices for the partisan Polish Home Army toobtain the rest.

A second safe house was arranged for Irena,and “it was a good one,” Walaszczyk said.

In fact, the safe house was too good not to beused to save additional lives, he said. SoWalaszczyk and Irena had two other women —Irena’s friend and nanny — move in. They all sur-vived the war thanks to Walaszczyk’s actions.

But his love affair with Irena did not:Walaszczyk acknowledged that he had relation-

ships with other women while he was married. “Under these circumstances, you live every

day like it’s your last one because you have toassume it is. And this has a lot of implications,also for a marriage,” he said.

Walaszczyk and Irena were divorced after lib-eration but stayed on good terms. AsWalaszczyk tried to do business in CommunistPoland — he attempted to open a beer distillery— he also supported his former wife financiallyuntil she “stood on her own two feet,” as he putit.

An ardent anti-Communist, Walaszczyk grewapart from Irena after she married a man whoworked for the Soviet Union’s puppet regime inPoland.

Irena, who had a daughter with her secondhusband, asked to see Walaszczyk shortly be-fore she passed away about 10 years ago. Theymet close to her death because she wanted tothank him one last time, he said.

Walaszczyk, who said he has had Jewishfriends his whole life, also learned that Irenanever told her daughter that she was Jewish.

“I was contacted by Irena’s grandchildren onlyrecently, they had no idea about the story,” hesaid.

Walaszczyk remarried in 1950, and the cou-ple had a son. They divorced and he remarriedagain, having another son with his third wife.

Throughout the war, Walaszczyk had also in-filtrated the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw to deliverfood and drugs to his friends there.

“I couldn’t leave them behind,” he said. “We

[the Home Army] were aware that our help wasonly symbolic. We also realized each visit couldvery well be the last thing we did in our life.”

Punishment for infiltrating the ghetto for non-Jews was death, typically immediately.

Walaszczyk additionally risked his life helpingat least 30 other Jews by employing them at afactory deemed vital for the German war effort.

“I probably took on too many risks,” he said.“But helping people in real need has been some-thing I couldn’t resist.”

Walaszczyk said he was an only child; his fa-ther died when he was 8, leaving his motherstruggling financially and often at the mercy ofstrangers.

“This detail in my biography may have hadsomething to do with my choices,” he said.

Poland has the highest number of Righteous:6,992 (the second highest is Holland’s 5,778saviors). But it also had thousands of Nazi col-laborators, some of whom murdered Jews out ofhatred and greed. The country also saw multipleanti-Semitic murderous pogroms after the Holo-caust, such as in Kielce in 1946.

“There were many rescuers. There were alsotraitors,” said Walaszczyk. “I know becausesome of my friends were killed because of trai-tors.

“We need to speak about both at the sametime because the existence of each one of thosegroups helps us understand the significance ofthe actions of both.”

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ, JTA

A LOVE AFFAIR

THAT MADE HIM RISK EVERYTHING

(Continued from page 10)played a disproportionately large role. This hasbeen underpublicized by both media and histori-ans. A monument near the Amsterdam munici-pality testifies to the Jewish resistance.

Afew months after the end of the war,Minister of Transport and EnergySteef van Schaik, of the CatholicKVP party, addressed a large gath-

ering of railway employees at The Hague. Hesaid: “With your trains, the unhappy victims werebrought to the concentration camps. In yourhearts, there was revolution. Nevertheless, youdid it. That is to your honor. It was the duty theDutch government asked from you because therailways are one of the pillars that support theeconomic life of the Dutch people. That shouldnot be put at risk.”

Years later, a journalist wrote in an Amster-dam daily that Van Schaik’s words were “themost horrible text ever spoken by a Dutch minis-ter.”

After the war, the Dutch had a psychologicalneed to soften the impact of their rapid defeat inMay 1940 at the hands of the Germans. This led

to an exaggeration of heroic acts by the Dutchduring the occupation, even to the point of inven-tion. In that scenario, there was, at best, a placefor the Jews as second-tier victims. The image

was that they had not resisted but instead cho-sen meekly to be deported.

This profoundly false motif was expressedonce again in Beukering’s words.

When Jewish representatives met the firstpostwar PM, Willem Schermerhorn, a Laborite,he told them he did not consider it his task to see

to it that Jews receive their assets back. Theseassets had been entirely stolen by the Germans.

Many decades later, the management boardof the railways and some local police chiefs apol-

ogized for the wartime role of theirpredecessors in the persecutionof Dutch Jews. Yet in 2012, thenliberal Minister of Security andJustice Ivo Opstelten refused toapologize on behalf of the policeat large. This was despite the factthat members of the Dutch policewere critical to the process of car-rying out the genocide of theJews.

Postwar Dutch governmentshave continued to maintain the“docile lambs” distortion. The cur-

rent liberal PM, Mark Rutte, has set the Nether-lands apart as the only Western Europeancountry to refuse to admit the huge failures of itswartime governments, let alone apologize forthem.

BY DR. MANFRED GERSTENFELD

DID DUTCH JEWS GO LIKE LAMBS

TO THE GAS CHAMBERS?

Dutch Jews board the train that is to take them to Auschwitz.


Thousands of Holocaust survivors andtheir descendants escaped the Nazisthanks to a Spanish diplomat nick-named “the Angel of Budapest” — yet

the late Angel Sanz Briz is hardly known in Spaintoday.

His improvised heroics in 1944 saved morethan 5,000 Hungarian Jews from deportation toAuschwitz.

“He is a hero of greater stature thanSchindler,” says Eva Benatar. Her mother shel-tered her as a baby, just weeks old, and herbrother in one of the safe houses set up by SanzBriz in Nazi-occupied Budapest.

After the Nazi invasion on March 19, 1944,codenamed Operation Margarethe, the chief SSHolocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann moved toBudapest with a plan to eliminate Hungary’sroughly one million Jews in record time.

Sanz Briz was serving in Spain’s embassy ascommercial attaché, before being left in chargeof the mission in mid-1944 at the age of 33. Hewas one of a group of diplomats who decided torescue Hungarian Jews.

In a matter of weeks the SS deported morethan 400,000 Jews to Auschwitz.

One of the Spaniard’s fellow humanitarianconspirators became a household name —Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who is-sued “protective passports” and saved tens ofthousands of Jews.

Wallenberg later disappeared; he was seizedby occupying Soviet forces and is widely thoughtto have died in a Soviet jail.

As reports grew about the escalating Holo-caust at Auschwitz and other Nazi killing sites,Sanz Briz started informing the fascist Francogovernment in Spain about the appalling truth.

A key document he sent was the Vrba-Wet-zler report, by two Jewish escapees fromAuschwitz.

However, for several months he received noinstructions from a regime that had initiallybacked Hitler in the war.

Remarkably, he began to take the law into hisown hands, falsifying consular documents to

grant nationality to refugees on the basis of along-expired 1924 Spanish law aimed atSephardic Jews, even though Hungary’s Jewishcommunity was overwhelmingly Ashkenazi.

Jews were hidden in the Spanish embassy inBuda; bribes were paid to local officials. SanzBriz braved the dangers of Nazi and HungarianFascist Arrow Cross patrols, as well as Alliedbombing raids, to shelter Jews at risk.

“I managed to get the Hungarian gov-ernment to authorize the protection bySpain of 200 Sephardic Jews. Then Iturned those 200 units into 200 families;and those 200 families were multipliedindefinitely, through the simple proce-dure of not expediting any safe conductto Jews with a number higher than 200,”Sanz Briz wrote in his report for theSpanish government from Berne in De-cember 1944.

“He added letters to each number,using the whole alphabet,” explains thediplomat’s son, Juan Carlos Sanz Briz.

“It was quite out of character; he wasactually a stickler for legality. Diplomatsaren’t meant to issue false papers or put

the national flag on buildings not part of the diplo-matic mission.”

Sanz Briz’s meticulously recorded final tallycame to 232 provisional passports issued to 352people, as well as 1,898 protective letters, and15 ordinary passports for 45Sephardic Jews.

As the Nazis and Hungar-ian Fascists closed in on thecity’s Jews, moving theminto confined quarters andkilling people in the streets,Sanz Briz rented 11 apart-ment buildings to house theapproximately 5,000 peoplehe had placed under Spain’sprotection.

In a 2013 interview forSpain’s RNE public radio,Jaime Vándor (recently de-ceased), who moved toBarcelona with his familyafter the war, recalled thesqualor of those Spanishrefuges.

“There were 51 of us living in a flat with twoand a half rooms. We were crowded, hungry andcold, infested with fleas. The hygiene was ap-palling, obviously, with so many people usingone toilet. But the worst thing was the fear, thefear of deportation.”

Ms. Benatar’s mother was one of thosegranted papers by the Spanish embassy aftershe brandished a postage stamp from Madrid,where Eva’s grandmother had fled before theNazi invasion.

Born in a cramped cellar, she never met her

father, who died in the so-called death marchesin early 1945.

But baby Eva, her mother and her brotherwere able to escape Hungary, ending up in Tang-ier, then an international city, although the familyeventually settled in Spain.

Sanz Briz left Budapest in November 1944,ordered out by his superiors in Madrid, whofeared he would suffer reprisals from the ap-proaching Soviet army, due to Spain’s help forthe Germans on the Eastern front.

He retreated into a regular diplomatic career,and was not permitted by the stridently anti-IsraelFranco regime to receive the honor of RighteousAmong the Nations awarded by Yad Vashem.

He joined the ranks of the Righteous in 1966.An obituary for Sanz Briz published by

Spain’s ABC newspaper in 1980 makes no men-tion of his exploits in Budapest.

“I never talked about this subject with him. Itwas not something that was discussed at home,”says Juan Carlos Sanz Briz. “He must have suf-fered greatly, but he didn’t tell us that.”

***

Before Spain returned to democracy inthe mid-1970s, the Franco regimehad an ambivalent stance on its rolein the Holocaust, sometimes claiming

that General Franco had in fact been a savior ofJews.

When the Nazis began deporting Jews fromFrance, the Franco regime at first allowed manythousands to flee through Spanish territory, be-fore tightening the policy in 1940.

Jews were refused transit papers, and thosecaught in the country illegally were rounded upand sent to a concentration camp at Miranda deEbro.

At no time was any significant number ofJews given the option of refuge in Spain, not

even Spanish-speaking Sephardic Jews from theNazi-occupied Greek city of Thessaloniki.

But there is evidence that Franco began tosense the need to improve his regime’s interna-tional image as it became increasingly clear thatHitler was losing the war.

On October 24, 1944, then foreign ministerJosé Félix de Lequerica sent a telegram to SanzBriz in Budapest. “On request of the World Jew-ish Congress please extend protection to largestnumber persecuted Jews,” it said.

BY JAMES BADCOCK, BBC News

HOW SPANISH

“ANGEL OF BUDAPEST”

SAVED JEWS

This Spanish joint passport got the Vándor family to safety from Hungary.

Eva Benatar with one of her grandchildren.


Polish commemoration of the Holo-caust does not erase the fact thatPoles murdered Jews, Yad Vashemand Hebrew University historian

Yehuda Bauer said at the Fourth Polish-IsraelForeign Policy Conference in that took place inJerusalem in February.

He raised the matter of distortion of Holocausthistory, which has clouded relations betweenPoland and Israel since January 2018, whenWarsaw outlawed tarnishing Poland and its peo-

ple’s “good name” by claiming its complicity inthe Holocaust.

According to Bauer, the distorters say: “‘Ofcourse, the Holocaust took place, and it was ter-rible, and we commemorate it, establish muse-ums, statues and mainly make wonderful, terrificspeeches.’ They love Jews, especially deadones. That doesn’t mean Poles didn’t persecuteand murder Jews.”

Professor Havi Dreifuss, head of the Centerfor Research on the Holocaust in Poland at YadVashem, argued at the conference that Polishdistorters of history don’t even like all deadJews — only the ones murdered by Germans.

“There is a total denial [of] Jews who werekilled by Poles,” he said. “Most Jews were mur-dered by Nazi Germany, and nobody [in Poland]could save them. But there were Jews killed byPoles in different ways.... Polish scholars haveshown us there were participants of Poles in thetragedy of Jews throughout the whole country,and this demands true research.”

Those who seek to distort history “make theargument that there were no Polish political col-laborators with the Germans,” Bauer said. “It’strue, simply because the Germans simply didn’twant them. Not in Ukraine, or Lithuania, either.The Germans eliminated pro-Fascist, pro-Ger-many attempts to create some kind of auton-omy.”

While the number of Poles who took part inthe genocide of the Jews is not settled, he citedestimates from different historians who say there

were 130,000 to 180,000 or 200,000, pointingout that either way, it was widespread.

“No collaboration?” Bauer said. “There werethousands of Polish policemen who handed overJews.... There was a Polish criminal police thatwas part of the German criminal police in Poland.There were fire brigades — so many buildings inPoland were built of wood — they collaboratedfully and nicely with the Germans.”

Dreifuss said, “This is part of history” andshould be researched and discussed. “No one

blames Poland for the deeds ofthe Germans. But what we dosay is Poland should take re-sponsibility for the deeds of thePoles.”

Bauer and Dreifuss ex-pressed support for historiansBarbara Engelking and JanGrabowski, who are being suedin Poland over the contents oftheir book Night Without End.

“If they are found guilty of at-tacking the honor and goodname of Polish people, they arelikely to get a fine that may de-stroy the possibility of their workin the future,” Bauer said. “I don’tthink the disagreement on cer-tain facts should come in front of

courts. That is not democracy. That is Bolshe-vism.”

At the same time, he acknowledged that anestimated 10% of ethnic Poles lost their livesowing to German occupation, citing “massive at-tacks by German forces on Polish villages and awhole program ofeliminating Poles.”

Bauer estimatedthat about 30,000Poles saved Jews,though they are notall recognized by YadVashem as Right-eous Among the Na-tions because of alack of documenta-tion.

Dreifuss said:“The Polish nationcan be very proud oftheir struggle againstNazi Germany out-side Poland and, ofcourse, within occu-pied Poland. Butsadly, many Polesaccepted one part of German policy: the murderof Jews.”

She criticized the conflation of Polish Jewsand ethnic Poles in statements that Polish par-ticipants in the conference made, such as usingthe formulation that six million Poles were killed,

three million of whom were Jewish. Dreifuss saideven though Jews had Polish citizenship at thetime, they were not viewed equally by otherPoles. For example, while the Polish under-ground fought the Germans, the occurrences inwhich they tried to save Jews or punish Poles forkilling Jews were rare, she said.

Polish political scientist and diplomat JakubKumoch tried to defend Poles for not treatingJews as though they were one nation, referringto Jews living in separate communities and notspeaking Polish.

He said Grabowski’s and Engelking’s num-bers were very far from the truth and could notbe considered quantitative research.

“Poles were responsible for the deaths ofthousands of Jews,” Kumoch admitted.

He compared the situation to Israel and thePalestinians: “Would anyone deny that the Israeliarmy committed crimes against Arabs? What if Isaid Israel killed 100,000 Palestinian children?That would make you a genocidal nation, andyou are not a genocidal nation. Not all Poleswere heroes. Many were traitors. We despisethem. We are ashamed of them.”

Polish Ambassador to Israel MarekMagierowski said: “When I meet teenagershere... I don’t shy away from the past. I don’t hidevirulent anti-Semitism, pogroms, [or] Poles whoacted inhumanely during the war.”

However, he said, he also tells the story oftwo villages where German soldiers killed 31people, 20 of whom were children, the youngestof which was six months old, because they hidtwo Jews.

“I want them to have the whole picture: thescale of intimidation millions of Poles were sub-ject to, the very same Poles blamed for not beingheroic enough to rescue their Jewish brethrenduring the Holocaust,” Magierowski said.

Polish Institute of International Affairs presi-dent Dr. Slawomir Debski said today is “a timewhen the future is certain, but the past seemsunpredictable.”

“If you are rich enough, you can buy your nar-rative,” he said. “You can buy historians, journal-

ists, parties to force them to speak the mostunbelievable untruths.... It’s on us to deliver his-torical truth and deliver this message to futuregenerations.”

BY LAHAV HARKOV, The Jerusalem Post

POLISH HOLOCAUST

DISTORTERS

LOVE DEAD JEWS

Yad Vashem and Hebrew University historian Yehuda Bauer.

Nazi officers in the Warsaw ghetto, Poland, spring 1943.

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Martyrdom & Resistance

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Editor-in-Chief

Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A.,

Editor

*Published Bimonthly by the American Society

for Yad Vashem, Inc.500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor

New York, NY 10110(212) 220-4304

EDITORIAL BOARD

Eli Zborowski**

Marvin Zborowski

Mark Palmer

Sam Skura**

Israel Krakowski**

William Mandell

Sam Halpern**

Isidore Karten**

Norman Belfer**

Joseph Bukiet**

*1974-85, as Newsletter for the AmericanFederation of Jewish Fighters, Camp In-mates, and Nazi Victims**deceased

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The American Society for Yad

Vashem was founded in 1981 by a

group of Holocaust survivors and led

by Eli Zborowski, z”l, for more than

thirty years. Our Legacy Circle is

named in memory of Eli Zborowski,

z”l, who was greatly respected for

his work and accomplishments on

behalf of Yad Vashem and is missed

by all who knew him.

The Eli Zborowski Legacy Circle is

open to anyone who includes Yad

Vashem in their estate plans. This in-

cludes a bequest by will, funding a

Charitable Remainder Trust or Charitable Gift Annuity, donat-

ing a paid-up life insurance policy or contributing an IRA or

retirement plan.*

By including Yad Vashem in your estate plans, you assure a

future in which Holocaust remembrance and education will

serve as a powerful antidote to Holocaust denial, distortion,

hate and indifference.

“I did not find the world desolate when I entered it. As my fa-thers planted for me before I was born, so do I plant for thosewho will come after me.”

The Talmud

For further information about the Eli Zborowski Legacy Cir-

cle, please contact

Robert Christopher Morton,

Director of Planned Giving at ASYV, who can be reached at:

212-220-4304; [email protected]

*ASYV now has nearly 100 individuals and families who have joined the

Zborowski Legacy Circle.

ELI ZBOROWSKI LEGACY CIRCLE


vol. 46-no. 5 issn 0892-1571 may/june 2020-iyyar/sivan 5780 … · 2020-06-24 · yad vashem and...

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